


if you just leave me be

by tattoedpetals



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, College AU if you squint, F/F, and mikasa is also hurt, annie is hurt, background yumihisu, be prepared for pain, but no red string, but they're going to be fine don't worry, mikasa and annie are soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29647635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tattoedpetals/pseuds/tattoedpetals
Summary: Annie meets Mikasa when they're nineteen.Mikasa leaves Annie when they're twenty three.It's just like every tale has ever told, falling in love with the girl who burns brighter than the sun will only cause a fate such as that which Icarus suffered; but no one ever blamed Annie of being well versed in her mythologies. They smile and they cheer and they laugh and fall in love, and when it breaks, all things come breaking around them.Mikasa is twenty five when she comes back into Annie's life and maybe there's just enough love left in both of them to see this through to the end.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Annie Leonhart
Comments: 23
Kudos: 102





	if you just leave me be

**Author's Note:**

> the numbers in the parentheses at the beginning of each paragraph is the age that they are in each section. there's lots of flashbacks and non-linear chronological movement so make sure to keep an eye out for the ages. 
> 
> cw for mentions of cigarettes but no actual smoking
> 
> that's all! enjoy :)

**x.**

_(25)_

“She kissed me,” Hitch says, the ghost of a grin on her face. 

It’s a Friday night, they’re in a bar and grill, five adults having drinks and dinner together, and Hitch tells them the best thing that’s happened to her all week.

All of their faces drop. 

“Don’t read into it,” Bertholdt sighs, rubbing his fingers into his temples. 

“Probably best if you forgot it happened at all,” Reiner seconds, twirling his straw in his pina colada. 

“Seriously, Hitch,” Historia sighs, leaning into Ymir’s side as the taller girl wraps a protective arm around her wife. “Don’t get caught up in Annie’s mess. She’s always kissing someone new to forget about someone old.”

**x.**

_(19)_

Annie runs into Mikasa when the sun melts with the earth. 

It’s barely still light out, the purples in the sky have put away their pastel beauty and all that’s left are it’s dark lingering reflections lighting up the paths and guiding her to a land far from her own house. 

“Where are you going?” 

It’s a stranger, on a park bench, with smoke curling near their face, lifting high into the sky, polluting the air. Annie doesn’t mind it. Some others might. It’s a public park after all. She thinks there’s a bit of rebellious charm in the way the person holds the stick between their fingers, twirls it, dances with it, lets it take on a life of its own. 

“Nowhere,” Annie responds, honestly, truthfully. What does she have to lose by talking to strangers? Her life just feels like a reel of moments that don’t even really matter anymore. 

“Looked like you were on a mission,” the stranger says back to her. They’re shrouded in darkness. Annie can’t see what _they_ look like. 

“Maybe I was,” Annie shrugs. “Maybe I was on a mission to find out where the fuck I’m going.”

That pulls a short exhale of laughter out of her new company’s mouth and they coolly flick the cigarette to the ground. 

“Can I tell you something?” the stranger asks, getting up off the bench, rising to their intimidatingly towering height. They had to be somewhere around six feet. 

Annie nods. She can’t tell if it’s because she’s genuinely interested in what the stranger has to say, or if it’s because she’s fearful for her life. Either way, she embraces it. It’s been a long time since she’s felt any emotion at all. Whether it’s fear or intrigue, she accepts it with open arms. She thanks this stranger silently for their presence. Dangerous or not. 

“I don’t actually smoke,” they say, and step into the light. “I just like to watch the smoke rise.”

It’s a girl. It’s a girl Annie has _seen before._ Tall, strong, broad shouldered, her hair growing somewhere between the nape of her neck and her shoulders, and a strand of it lying haphazardly across her face in a manner that shouldn’t look as sexy as it does. 

“I’ve seen you around before,” Annie blurts out. She should’ve responded to the last thing she said. She should’ve acted _cooler._

The stranger smiles, but it’s small. The corner of her mouth curls gently. 

“I’ve seen you too. That’s why I stopped you to talk to you.”

At that, Annie grins. “So you _don’t_ stop every stranger you see to dissect them and their motives?”

The girl giggles, and her harsh persona falls away. “No, sorry. I bet that really ruins my image doesn’t it?”

“Lucky for you,” Annie shrugs. “I don’t really have an image of you yet.”

“Ah,” the stranger hums. “Lucky me.”

They stand there for a moment, regarding each other, taking it in. The familiarity and lack of it all at once stands dizzyingly at balance, like a water droplet doming a coin, never spilling over the edges but only growing larger and larger. 

“Mikasa,” the stranger finally speaks up again. By now, any trace of sun has disappeared, dipped below them, and all they’re left with is the sickly yellow pallor of the lamp light on the sidewalk. “Mikasa Ackerman.”

“Annie,” she responds, stretching out a hand, though it’s an incredibly awkward gesture at other times, she feels it’s just right this time. “Annie Leonhardt.”

Mikasa’s warm palm slips into hers, feeling like two parts of a whole coming together, and it’s so _right_ that it almost knocks Annie back onto her ass. 

“Yeah,” Mikasa nods. “I already knew that.”

**x.**

_(25)_

“I’m sorry _what the shit_ was that reaction?” Hitch exclaims, eyebrows furrowed halfway between disappointment and confusion. “I have told you guys multiple times how bad of a crush I have on her and I’m telling you she _kissed me_ and this is my reception? A lesser woman would’ve walked out of this establishment.”

Ymir laughs but it’s so full of sympathy that Hitch looks back down at her half finished plate of fried shrimp. 

“It’s not about you, Dreyse. It’s about Annie, she’s not… emotionally available,” Ymir’s free arm reaches up to wrap a hand around her beer. The condensation rings the skin of her phalanges, dribbling over the corners, and she watches the droplets fall. Doesn’t even move to fix it. “She hasn’t been for a long time.”

“I _know_ she had a bad breakup but-”

Reiner shakes his head, cutting her off. “She didn’t just _have a bad breakup,_ Hitch. She got her heart shattered. To tiny pieces. There was never anyone for Annie before Mikasa, and there will never be anyone for her after. You should really let it go unless you want to get your heart broken too.”

Hitch harrumphs, brunette curls bouncing on her head as she crosses her arms over her chest disappointedly and leans back in her booth. 

“Well that fucking _sucks._ Why did she kiss me then?”

Historia fiddles with the material of Ymir’s sleeve that hangs over her shoulder. Hitch watches the gesture. It must be so comforting to be in a relationship like Ymir and Historia, so sure, so stable. They had been married for almost three years at this point. High school sweethearts that lasted forever. 

“Annie is a bit of an asshole,” Historia whispers. “But she’s _our_ asshole.”

Hitch sighs, shoulders drooping. 

“Right.”

Bertholdt chimes in, his smile entirely gentle and unwavering. “Hitch, if you need a pick me up, you always know we can take you somewhere to get your mind off of everything, right? Hell, there’s a great karaoke bar I know a few miles from here-”

Hitch smiles despite herself and shakes her head. “Nah, I’m okay. Honestly I’ll recover. Besides, weren’t we supposed to be waiting for Annie tonight anyways?”

Ymir grumbles. “Yeah.. might take her a while though."

Hitch lifts an eyebrow. 

“She likes to go sit at this specific spot for long hours whenever she goes out these days,” Ymir explains, eyes cast on her drink. “Sometimes she manages to pry herself away from it…”

“Other times we have to go get her out of there ourselves,” Historia finishes quietly. 

**x.**

_(19)_

It’s a Friday night.

Annie’s a college student itching to meet another college student, and she _knows_ there’s no better place to try her luck than at the party raving a few blocks away from campus. 

And whaddya know. 

Annie hits the jackpot. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Mikasa says, a charming smile on her face as she waltzes over to Annie, two cups in her hands, one for herself and one for someone else. 

She hands the _someone else’s_ cup to Annie. 

They haven’t talked since they met at that bench a few weeks ago though Annie has caught fleeting glimpses of Mikasa around campus. Always flanked by her friends, always laughing, always the center of attention. 

“Oh, hi Mikasa,” Annie says, her voice small, accepting the drink. “You got this for me?”

Mikasa smiles. “I got it for someone.” 

Annie flushes red. “Aren’t they going to miss it?”

“Who cares if they do,” Mikasa rebuts, situating herself on the wall next to Annie, kicking up a leg to balance her body. Everything about her screams _sexy,_ and Annie is having a hard time ignoring that. “It’s yours now because I want it to be yours.”

Annie thinks that’s enough reason to take a small sip from it. The flavor is disgusting but its her cup of disgusting. 

“Where are your friends?” Annie asks, holding the cup to her stomach.

Mikasa shrugs, scanning the crowd. “Eren said he was going to go fight Jean in a keg stand battle or whatever, and Armin is probably off in some corner reading fanfiction on his phone so,” she turns her head to look Annie directly in the eyes. It doesn’t help Annie’s erratic heartbeat in the least. “I guess you’re stuck with me for now.”

“I don’t mind it,” Annie says, throwing a glance at Mikasa. “Being stuck with you.”

Mikasa smiles. She slides closer, and before Annie knows it, there’s a warm arm wrapped around her waist, holding them body to body, almost possessively. A hot flush of blood rises to Annie’s cheeks at the contact. 

“Good,” Mikasa hums, and Annie feels it in her very chest. “‘Cause I wasn’t planning on letting you go anytime soon.”

“I know Armin and Eren,” Annie says quickly, changing the topic. She doesn’t want Mikasa to know how flustered she is. “Armin and I have a class together, photography, and Eren’s always hanging around outside the lecture hall, waiting to pick Armin up after class. They’re good people.”

“I love them,” Mikasa divulges. “I’d do anything for the two of them.” 

Annie smiles. For all the recklessness that Mikasa seems to embody, with her dark clothes, ripped jeans, and tight leather jacket, she’s surprisingly _tender._ She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve but she tucks it in her breast pocket, where Annie can just barely see the top of it, doesn’t see it fully, but knows it’s there, can barely sniff it’s secrets. 

“That’s sweet,” Annie says truthfully. 

“They’d do the same for me,” Mikasa admits, her voice lowering to whisper, the ghost of a wistful smile on her face. “They _have_ done the same for me. They’re my rocks, Leonhardt. You have no fucking clue.”

Something tugs at the pit of Annie’s stomach, a longing, a feeling, a gnawing chasm of intimate desire (of both sexual and nonsexual variety), and she finds herself realizing that she just wants to _know more_ about Mikasa. She wants to have a clue. She wants to be able to sit next to Mikasa, hear her thoughts, hear what she says, and know what she really means by it. 

It’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once. 

“We should get out of here,” Annie says, one of her hands moving to tug at the sleeve of Mikasa’s arm that’s wrapped around her waist. She doesn’t know why she says it, it’s impulsive, it’s reckless, it’s entirely what she wants to do. 

Mikasa raises an eyebrow, but the intrigue glints in her eyes so dangerously Annie almost gets lightheaded. 

“Oh?"

Annie huffs, realizing how it sounded. “Not like _that._ Just- out. Somewhere. Anywhere.” 

Her heart drops for a split second when she realizes maybe Mikasa isn’t feeling all that Annie’s feeling, maybe Mikasa wants to just spend this party with her and then never see Annie again. Maybe-

“Okay.”

Annie blinks. “What?”

 _“Okay,”_ Mikasa emphasizes, setting her drink- which she had drank none of- to the side, and slipping away from Annie towards the entryway. “You wanna get out of here then lets fucking get out of here.”

Annie feels the sun itself bursting forth from her lips as she bounds after Mikasa, the both of them getting lost into the world together.

**x.**

_(25)_

Annie’s cold. 

Colder than she’s felt in a long time. 

Maybe she would’ve noticed the cold sooner if she actually stepped out of her house more often. But it feels like autopilot. The last two years of her life have all felt like fucking autopilot. It’s aimless, it’s passionless, it’s a lot like how she had felt before she had met the best thing that had ever happened to her. 

That’s not to say that Annie’s tired of living, or anything like that. Annie’s okay. 

She was okay before Mikasa and she’ll be okay after her. 

She has to be. 

The bench is cold. Colder than she remembers it to be. Her body shivers, her teeth clatter, and she sits there watching the condensation rise from her mouth like the smoke from Mikasa’s cigarette had all those years ago. 

_I don’t smoke,_ she had said. 

Neither does Annie. 

But they both made white puffs in the air all the same. 

“I miss you, Mika,” Annie whispers, more clouds of condensation flowing from her lips like bubble wrapping her words. “I don’t know why you left… I don’t know why I wasn’t enough…”

“You were enough.”

Annie’s lips still, eyes snapping open. 

She doesn’t move. 

Doesn’t dare breathe. 

“How many times did I tell you before I left that it wasn’t your fault?” the voice comes again. So familiar. So not. 

Annie gulps shakily. Her fingers curl around the edge of the bench, the cold is no longer something she just feels, she _experiences_ it. The ice leaks through her veins, it reaches out from between her blood vessels to melt with the slick of it on the bench. Annie is a crystallized shell of a person.

“Annie.”

She doesn’t look up. 

“Annie,” she calls again, softer this time. So familiar. So not. 

“I can’t- I don’t-” Annie stutters. “I’ve had this dream before. Meeting you here. Seeing you again. Looking at your face, your _beautiful_ face. It hurt me so bad to have to wake up from that.”

There’s shuffling. 

Please god no- 

Annie sees the silhouette by her feet. Still as tall as ever, of course, broad, and looming. There are no details in her shadow, Annie can’t avoid looking at her face and see all it’s emotions at the same time. She has a decision to make. 

“This isn’t a dream, Annie.”

Annie huffs, squeezing her eyes shut. “That’s so much worse.”

“Please look at me,” Mikasa whispers, it breaks at the end, the shard flies, it catches on Annie's sensitive, sensitive heart. It tears her open. It makes her paint the sidewalk crimson. 

She looks at Mikasa. 

For the first time in two years, she sees her. 

“Oh,” Annie breathes out. And it’s all she can do really. 

She’s not sure what she expected, maybe the same girl who had left her, maybe the girl she had first met all those years ago, maybe, maybe, maybe. 

In the end, all she’s left with is a woman she no longer knows and a maybe. 

Mikasa’s hair is still short, she always hated growing it past her shoulders, said it got in her face too much. That stupid sexy strand still falls between her eyes, and Annie’s eyes are still attracted to it. But her eyes, those grey eyes, are different. Darker. Heavier. Stormy like the minutes before a downpour. 

She’s wearing a long coat over a black dress shirt and slacks. There’s a red scarf wrapped tight around her neck, and her shoes are shiny with polish. She looks well kempt. But maybe that’s her way of trying to prove to everyone that she wasn’t falling apart on the inside. 

Or maybe Annie is being too presumptuous to think that Mikasa had ever felt that strongly. 

_She loved you,_ the angel on her shoulder whispers. 

_She left you,_ the devil advocates. 

Annie wraps her arms across her midsection. 

Mikasa looks older, of course she does. Two years have added onto her like ten might, and Annie can’t say she probably looks any better herself. 

“You’re still beautiful,” Annie whispers. It’s the truth. 

Mikasa trembles. “So are you, my love.”

Annie pretends those words don’t ensconce her as much as they do. She doesn’t want to give Mikasa the satisfaction of knowing she’s still Annie’s safe place, after all these years, after all the heartbreak. 

“Why are you back?” Annie asks. It’s all she can think of. Why is she back? Now of all times? Why is she back now and why didn’t she come back the day after she had left? What changed? Who are they to each other now? 

“Would you believe me if I said I missed you?” Mikasa answers, stoic as ever, though her shoulders droop submissively. She’s not the commanding presence Annie knew in their college years. She’s just Mikasa now.

“Maybe.” It’s all Annie has. Yes and no escapes her when the convenience of _maybe_ is right there. Same way Mikasa had escaped her when the convenience of leaving had been right there. 

Mikasa nods, pursing her lips. “It’s half the truth. I missed you. I missed you so much I thought my heart would give out if I went another day without seeing you.”

“But that’s only half the truth,” Annie intones. 

“Yeah,” Mikasa glances down at her feet, kicking loose stones. “It’s a bit of a long story but if you-” she looks up at Annie again, eyes practically pleading. “- if you want to hear it we can go somewhere.”

Annie stiffens. “I have plans.” 

Mikasa’s face falls. Annie feels it like Icarus felt the sun. 

“Sorry, yeah, of course-”

“But you know your way back home,” she says, giving in. Always giving in. She’s never been able to resist Mikasa anyways. “If you want…”

She doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Mikasa has always known what Annie wants to say like Mikasa was the one speaking it. 

“You want me to wait for you at home?” She goes red. “Your home, I mean.”

_It used to be ours._

Annie shoves that thought far away. Of course it’s not theirs anymore, Mikasa left her alone in that empty space two years ago. It’s Annie who watered and kept Mikasa’ favorite plants alive for the last two years, it’s Annie who dusted the spaces and shoveled the driveway, it’s Annie who paid the water and electricity bill.

It’s all just Annie’s. 

“You know where the spare keys are,” Annie says in lieu of a yes or no. 

“In the insulation tear of the front door?”

Annie nods. “It was a good place to hide it. You were smart for that.”

Mikasa blushes a deep red. “Thanks.”

Annie looks away. She can’t stand the way her heart flutters at the sight of Mikasa’s bashfulness. It reminds her of simpler times, reminds her of when they were just Mikasa and Annie, with nothing else between them. Just two girls, dating, kissing, making love, laughing, and spending their life together. 

She stands, shaky but determined. 

“I have to go. Ymir and the others- they’re waiting for me.”

Mikasa’s brows furrow. Annie knows she misses them. They had all become Mikasa’s friends too over the years, just the same way Armin and Eren had become Annie’s friends. Annie barely stops herself from offering to bring Mikasa with her. 

It would be too much. They need to take this one step at a time. 

It’s a fools errand, to hope that maybe Annie can do this the right way, maybe salvage whatever is left of their broken relationship, but she has to try. She has to. 

“Are you going to tell them you met me?” Mikasa asks. 

“Maybe.” Annie answers. 

Mikasa swallows. Nods. 

It gets colder.

The sun has been gone for a long time now, and they’re standing in the luminescence of a fly-spotted lamp light. Just like they had been the first time they met. 

Except this time, Annie runs into Mikasa when the earth has swallowed the sun whole. 

**x.**

_(22)_

Mikasa giggles into Annie’s shoulder, arms around her waist, holding her close. She giggles so hard it vibrates through Annie’s being, shaking them both, making it so incredibly difficult for Annie to sink the key into the lock. 

“Mika!” she complains, loudly, light heartedly. 

This is their property now. Their house. They can do whatever they want, scream whatever they want, however loudly or softly they want to. 

“Annie this is _us,_ this is the Ackerman-Leonhardt household,” Mikasa whispers, full of childish giddiness. 

“Okay that’s adorable for now but we are _not_ hyphenating our last names when we get married.”

Mikasa spins her around, effectively halting any and all efforts to successfully unlock the front door. 

Annie gives in, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend’s neck and pulling her in close. They can get inside later, after all, this is their house now. 

“You wanna marry me?” Mikasa asks, her voice soft, low, full of awe. 

Annie smiles, plays with the hairs at the nape of Mikasa’s neck, rubs them between her fingers gently. “Of course I do, silly. There’s nobody else for me. You’re it, Ackerman. You’re my forever."

For a second, there’s a flash of panic in Mikasa’s eyes, the same one Annie has seen a thousand times whenever she brings up their future. It lingers, it stagnates, but within seconds, it dissipates, and it leaves behind an even mushier ands softer Mikasa than it had inhabited. 

Mikasa lowers her head, rubbing the tips of their noses together, arms tightening around Annie’s waist.

“You’re my forever, too.”

**x.**

_(25)_

Ymir and Historia are by the bar gathering another round of drinks when they see Annie come in. 

“Oh she looks terrible,” Historia whispers, her hand instinctively moving to grip at Ymir’s elbow for support. “I mean physically she looks _good,_ but her eyes-"

“She visited the spot again,” Ymir sighs, rubbing her thumb over Historia’s knuckles with her other hand. “She always looks like that after she goes to that damn bench.”

“At least we didn’t have to pry her off it this time,” Historia sighs as they watch Annie linger by the entrance for a little bit, not searching for their table, but rather staring off into space like she’s not sure why she came here in the first place. 

Ymir hums in acknowledgement. “Small mercies, I suppose.”

Historia sighs deeply and nuzzles closer into Ymir until her tall wife lifts her arm and lets Historia under it, tucking into her side again. 

“You’re obsessed with me, darling,” Ymir teases, pressing a short kiss to the top of her head. 

“You love it, you clingy bitch.”

Ymir lets out a huff of laughter, but it doesn’t last long as her eyes go right back to Annie. Their Annie, who they spent all of their lives getting to know, their Annie who helped them set up their wedding venue and danced with Mikasa at the reception. Their Annie who used to be so full of energetic light and now has dwindled away to just a spec of that in memories. 

“Hitch would be good for her,” Ymir admits quietly, watching, thinking, assessing. 

Historia shakes her head. Her flyaway strands of flaxen hair tickle Ymir’s chin. 

“She would break Hitch’s heart.”

“But what if she didn’t.”

“You said it yourself, Ymir, she’s not emotionally available, she never has been until Mikasa came along. That’s special, what they have is- _was-_ special. And I would hate for Hitch to have to suffer through being a rebound because we both know how quickly she catches feelings.”

Ymir sighs and leans fully into her wife, seeking warmth and comfort from her. Historia and her had been through their ups and downs, they had seen their own fair share of arguments that led to near-breakups, and they had even broken up for a few months in college. But at the end of the day, they were it for each other, they always came right back.

Ymir has a hunch that Mikasa and Annie are somewhat like that.

Maybe exactly like that. 

“You’re right,” she acquiesces, turning back to the bar when their orders spin out at them. “It’s just Mikasa. It’s always been Mikasa.”

**Author's Note:**

> ty for reading! the next chapter should be up soon :)


End file.
